Afghan Youth Travel to India to Study Nonviolent Resistance to Anglo-Imperialism

Ali, Faiz and Abdulai at the Gandhi Memorial in New Delhi, India

Indian, Afghan and human poverty

Faiz, Abdulai, Ali and I are travelling in India to learn from Gandhian practitioners ( in Ekta Parishad ). We wish to learn how to mobilize people from the villages to protest non-violently.

Immediately, we’re encountering our own poverty.

Our flexible travel  itinerary :

6th Jan to 9^th Jan : New Delhi

10^th to 15^th Jan : Bhopal

15^th to 21^st Jan : Ahmedabad

23^rd to 26^th Jan : Aliabad?

27^th Jan : Return to Kabul Afghanistan

6^th Jan  : Firsts for Faiz, Abdulai, Ali

First time on plane

First time above clouds

First time having pineapples

First time on elevator, travelator

First time using standing urinal and automatic sink-tap

First time in a big city that’s green ( Delhi )

First feelings penned at Kabul International Airport :

Faiz – ‘excited’

Ali – ‘very happy’

Abdulai – ‘eager to learn’

Hakim – ‘opportunity’

Kathy Kelly – ‘relieved, open’

Maya Evans  ( UK peace activist ) – ‘discovery, adventure’

7^th Jan : Other Firsts

First time up close to a Hindu temple

First time seeing so many women with uncovered heads

First time in underground Metro

First time being a foreigner

homeless in India

8^th Jan : More Firsts

First time in multimedia memorial museum ( Gandhi Memorial )

First time seeing a lifelike statue ( of Gandhi and his wife )

First time presenting to an audience abroad ( about 100 students at Jawaharlal Nehru University ) – AYPVs spoke  about : ‘Upon awakening, do not live normally.’

9^th Jan : Lodhi Garden and Gandhi Peace Foundation

Lodhi was a Pathan

– the garden had green lawns, old ruins, swans, squirrels, parrots and other birds, smooching lovers

Gandhi Peace Foundation

-meeting held to discuss a high court case of an Indian activist charged with visiting a political prisoner, sedition included as one of the charges

-short messages to Indian human rights activists, AYPVs spoke  about : ‘Dissolving the borders of peace’

The youth with peace activists Maya Evans ( UK ),

Kathy Kelly ( USA ) , Paul and Kathrin ( Canada )

at the World Peace Gong in Gandhi Memorial

10^th Jan : Railway train to Bhopal

It was a comfortable 8-hour ride on the train from Delhi to Bhopal.

Fields, fields, fields, litter, litter, litter, cattle, cattle, cattle…

We shared a urgent feeling for human livelihoods to return to the fields.